


lily white and poppy red

by nosecoffee



Category: Hadestown - Mitchell, Hellenistic Religion & Lore
Genre: Angst, Blatant Hurt, But Also A Bit, Canon Compliant, Canon Divergent, Extended Metaphors, F/F, Memory Loss, bird metaphors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-16
Updated: 2019-01-16
Packaged: 2019-10-11 03:57:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17439503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nosecoffee/pseuds/nosecoffee
Summary: (i trembled when he laid me out)*Like any Canary in any mine, suddenly theirs stops singing.





	lily white and poppy red

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Flowers" by Anïas Mitchell, also from Hadestown, but it's not on the album so I'm just gonna credit it to her.
> 
> I'm not very nice about Hades and Persephone's relationship in this, because it's taking place during the part of the show where they're very frustrated with each other. For real though, I love them, and they're a dramatic power couple.
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

The Canary blinks, and unfolds her arms, stretching them like the wings she wished she had. She thinks that if she had wings she’d like them to be gold, or maybe red, or perhaps the darkest blue possible, so dark that it’s almost black. That way, whenever light shone on them, they’d shimmer all dark blue.

Yes, the Canary thinks to herself. _Yes,_ she’d like to have wings of dark blue, so they’d shine in the neon light of Hadestown.

Her room is made of glass panes, intersected by wooden veins, curving over her head. In the past, the Canary assumes, this room was a greenhouse, perhaps one of The Lady’s many greenhouses, donated when the Canary came into being. It seems fitting, she supposed, although The Lord loathes to bother his wife, to take back gifts, to be charitable more than he must.

The floor is soft, made of grass, and around her, furniture. A day bed and a vanity, a large bed in the centre, with no distinct head and foot, a nest of sheets and cushions, more cushions than the Canary could ask for. The Lord takes good care of those he values.

Why is the Canary awake, she wonders? What could The King and Queen of the Underworld want from her at this hour? For that is the only reason she would be lucid. That is the only reason she could be standing with her bare feet against the cool grass, awake and waiting, blood thrumming in her veins fast as a hummingbird’s wings, waiting, attentive, expectant.

But no one comes to collect her.

And so the Canary waits, sitting patiently in the grass, humming to herself. She waits until she is useful.

~

Persephone doesn’t like what he’s done to her. Hades used to be gentle and loving, but one too many summers away, and part of his gentle spark is gone.

Now he showers her with gifts she cannot accept, gifts that don’t feel like gifts, gifts that feel like cinder blocks on her feet, chains around her wrists. She feels like a bird throwing itself against the bars of a too-small cage, given food and water far too often, stared and balked at for every hour of the day.

She feels suffocated and castrated.

Persephone loathes him the most, however, for what he has done to the poets wife.

When she had first heard of his newest conquest, she had snorted in disgust. So like Hades to lose an ongoing fight and retreat to the Aboveworld for a little comfort. And then, he returned with her, snake bites on her ankles, flesh ripped away from her bones. She was an ugly thing to behold, it was true, and hardly recognisable as a person.

Hades had her sign the papers, and when she emerged, docile and hazy-eyed, renewed in skin and life, Persephone recognised the young woman. She had spent a night or two drinking bottles of this woman's wine. She had spent nights around a bonfire, coaxing this woman's husband to sing for them. She had spent weeks twining the lovers together.

And now this woman, the poet’s wife, emerges from Hades’ office, white scars on her ankles, and a far away look on her face, and Persephone is enraged.

Hades does not see her rage, for she hides it deep within her chest, beside her heart, a place he fails to reach anymore, and he brings the poet’s wife to their chambers, and he beckons for her - his _Canary_ \- to sing for them.

If her husband has a voice gifted by the gods, this woman is a goddess herself. She sings of nothing to them, melodies that barely fit together, words that don't make sense, and Persephone is both entranced and disgusted. Hades sends her away after the woman is done singing, and she leaves, obediently.

“What the fuck.” Persephone growls, menace in her voice. Many have known her destruction before, but her husband has never had the pleasure. He has never known her anger directed at him, quite like this. She has never been this enraged with him. “How dare you do this to her.”

Hades only stares on, blankly, at her, across the miles and miles of bed sheets that feel like a wall between them. “She was hungry, and she was dead. I thought you would prefer this to me leaving her to be picked apart by the vultures.”

“You thought I would prefer another mindless toy?” Persephone replies, sharply.

He blinks, and frowns, face turning down, “I did not know you so loathed my gifts.”

“What I _loathe,_ Hades,” she spits, “is what you perceive as _gifts.”_

Persephone sleeps at her speakeasy, that night, though she does not open it. She does not wish to enjoy this night with thoughts of the Aboveworld. She wishes to wallow in what a cruel man her husband can be, despite his good intentions.

~

The Canary thinks that The Lady hates her. It's an easy thing to think.

She is called to sing for them whenever The Lord so pleases, and whenever she's there, The Lady glares. The Lady whispers sharply when she leaves, The Lady avoids her when she comes across the Canary in the house. The Lady must hate her. That's the only explanation.

Only, the Canary doesn't know why. She does not know anything before being the Canary, and she also does not know what she could have done to upset The Lady.

So the Canary tries to sing about things that might matter, might make sense when strung together. The Canary tries to sing with more feeling and power, and now The Lady frowns deeper, arms crossing across her chest, defensively, eyes downcast.

The Canary cannot sleep with the neon in her eyes, so instead she stares at the ceiling of her room, the glass intersected with wood. It feels smaller, now, claustrophobic, like a cage, perhaps, somewhere to go when she is not needed. However, a thought triggers in the back of her mind, and Canary closes her eyes and thinks _at least I can can say I have a roof over my head._

What a strange thing to think, it is. Of course there is a roof over the Canary’s head. The Lord would be unkind to leave her without one.

~

Persephone catches the young woman’s wrist when she leaves, one night, making her startle like a wild animal. She's normally such a composed little thing, and now she looks like a deer, struck and bleeding out, afraid, _so afraid._ Persephone remembers the snake bites on her ankles. She imagines she must have been so afraid when she died. Her husband was so unkind to give her such a painful end.

“Do you know your name?” Persephone hisses, and squeezes the young woman’s wrist tighter when she does not answer.

“I do not have a name.” The poet’s wife responds, quiet, trembling. “I am the Canary.”

Persephone feels a shock of cold hit her, and she releases the young woman’s wrist on impulse. The minute she's free, she scampers away, fast as a hare from a hunter.

 _I am the Canary._ No. She meant she is _his_ Canary, and the thought makes Persephone sick.

~

The Canary thinks The Lord is growing tired of her.

She sings with all her might, but now, it seems, if she doesn't please The Lady, how can she ever hope to please her Lord? The Canary resigns herself to becoming inconsequential. One day, perhaps, he will forget about her, entirely, and she will waste away in her wood and glass prison, cool grass at her feet and neon shining in her eyes.

One night, he asks her to wait before he sends her away.

“I am going to give you work,” The Lord informs her, “you'll be working in a mine, for me. I'll still be needing your skills, but I think you should make yourself useful.”

The Canary nods, it is the only thing she can do.

The next morning, The Lord takes her from the glass and wood room, into town, into a building and up three flights of stairs, into a room that is bare besides a coat rack in a corner, holding a dark, warm coat. It smells familiar, the Canary notes when she presses the material of a sleeve to her nose.

“This is where you will live, now, understand?”

Once again, she only nods.

Then, he shows her the mines. He gives her boots and a helmet and proper clothes in which to work, and he sends her down with a pick axe and a smile. The Canary sings as she works, this time songs that make sense, songs that need a lyre or a guitar behind them, a higher voice to sing the, better constructed and full of feeling and meaning. The other workers smile at her, kiss her cheeks, dirtying them with dust, thank her for the brightness she brings.

The Canary learns to live the life The Lord has given her.

Occasionally, he collects her from the mine, brings her back to his house to sing to him and his unfeeling wife, but not as often as he used to. The Canary used to fear that he would tire of her, but now she has something to fall back on, should he decide she truly is useless to him.

When she stands at the foot of his bed, singing, the Canary thinks she would like to have wings, so she could fly away.

~

Persephone hears tales of the poet’s wife singing in the mine. The workers sing her praises, call her their beauty, their maiden, their Canary. Persephone shivers in disgust at what her husband has moulded this poor girl into.

Whenever she sings for them, Persephone makes a habit of pulling her aside, asking her questions of her life in the Aboveworld without ever specifying that she had ever had a previous life. The young woman always looks startled and scared, always eager to run away as soon as Persephone has whispered her last.

One night, she cannot take it any longer.

She presses the girl to the wall, searches her face for recognition. There is none but what she already knew of this blank slate. Persephone could cry in frustration. Never in her life has she felt this useless to a cause.

She does the only thing she can. She presses her lips to the young woman’s, swallowing her gasps, and whispers, _“Remember.”_

~

The Lord - Hades stops calling for her to sing for them. That's okay. The Canary has too much to think about, now. The kiss she had shared with The Lady - Persephone,the word she'd spoken to her lips, the feeling of life, suddenly, in her chest.

The Canary doesn't know what to do with herself.

She can't focus on her work. She has to think. She has to remember. Remember what, though? What is there to remember? She is the Canary, she is _his_ Canary, she is there to sing for The Lord and His Lady, to please them, to be-

She is Eurydice. And she is dead.

~

Like any Canary in any mine, suddenly theirs stops singing.

~

Eurydice doesn't know how many days she's been in Hadestown. She knows it's been more than a month. She doesn't remember what month of autumn it was that she left, and so does not know what season it is in the Aboveworld. It's so startlingly hot six feet down that she doesn't need the coat she now knows she arrived in.

She keeps it in the little apartment in Hadestown. She doesn't need it. On days that Hades is lenient, she goes to the little room on the third floor of the building, her tiny room, and she uses it as a pillow.

There is no night or day in Hadestown, and though Eurydice gets exhausted, she never grows tired. She never really needs to sleep, now that she lives in Hades' neon acropolis. When he's lenient, and she goes to her third floor room, she cannot sleep. She just stares at the ceiling, and wishes she hadn't been so foolish.

And that's how it is, for so long. After she's lost count of how many days it's been.

Until Hades and Persephone have another fight.

They are in love, or they used to be, and still are a bit. Eurydice knows this, she's seen their loathing and their love for each other first hand, swirling in a tornado of passion. When they fight, and Hades says that everything was for her, and Persephone says she hates it, Hades flees to the surface, seduces another young, dying someone and drags them down bellow.

Persephone has a very different coping mechanism. She runs to the edge of Hadestown, right to the edge of the River Styx, and enters her secret speakeasy.

Eurydice is dragged by a miner and her curiosity after Persephone and finds herself in some kind of bar. Persephone walks around with a tray of drinks, serves them, speaks sweetly to miners and workers, and offers treasures for the homesick.

She watches from a corner, a glass of summer wine that hasn't yet turned in her hand. Persephone offers them sunshine in a bottle to keep in their rooms, offers them jars of rain, offers them flowers, and moonshine from behind the bar.

She catches Eurydice's eye, she smirks, as if she knows better, and Eurydice knows she probably does. Their eyes uncatch, like a hook and eye in an old dress, and Persephone goes back to what she was doing, and Eurydice goes back to staring at the ground, and taking sips of her wine, every so often.

The memories that the wine stirs up come unbidden and uninvited. Upon crossing the tracks into Hadestown, Eurydice forgot everything, the suffering she had endured, the love she had received, how graphic and horrible her death was. But now, like the dandelions in her drink perking up with the light of day, her memory returns, and Eurydice closes her eyes, remembering the phantom touch of an absent minded lover.

It's enough to make tears spring to her eyes, the way they did when he told her he'd hold her forever. Him, her love, her husband, _her Or-_

And then Persephone deserts her tray of drinks and sidles up to Eurydice, a cigarette in her hand. Eurydice opens her eyes reluctantly upon the goddess's arrival, and stares at her, wonderingly, distrustfully. "I remember you." She says, cigarette clenched between her teeth, lifting a lit match to the end of it - and she says this as if they had not spent so long dancing around each other when Eurydice didn't know who she was. "The poet's wife, yes?"

Eurydice doesn't answer. She just stares. How is it that she's spoken to a god, sold him her soul, gone down to hell with him, and yet a word from this goddess, a goddess who’s kissed her, can bind her tongue? Persephone smiles and smoke billows from between her teeth.

 _(Was_ her husband a poet?)

"Cat got your tongue?" She asks, teasingly, the cigarette leaving her mouth by way of between her index and middle finger. Eurydice flinches.

 _He_ had said that - _Hades._ Back in that wood, back when she had been desperate for warmth, back when she'd looked up, and suddenly there were snakes everywhere, an she was there, offering a way out. The warmth down here is so stifling, Eurydice almost prefers the icy cold.

Persephone nods, teasing suddenly disappeared. "I see." She says, and Eurydice supposes she does. She must see so many people rediscovering their lives here, Eurydice is just another face in the crowd. And yet, she remembered her. "So, what do you miss?"

Eurydice takes a drink, trying to force her hands to stop shaking. Despite the wine, her mouth is dry. "Everything." She admits, as unhelpful as it may be. But it's true. She misses the grass underneath her feet, the freezing winds, the way she'd screamed at her husband, her lover, to do something, to protect them and shelter them. She misses it all, no matter how it pained her at the time.

"Not very easy for me to help you with that." Persephone says, taking Eurydice's cup and passing her her cigarette, in return. Eurydice doesn't smoke. Never had the money for something as trivial as that. "What is something you miss that I can help? How can I dull the pain, so to speak?"

Eurydice ashes Persephone's half-smoked cigarette on the windowsill, keeping eye contact with the goddess as she does and wondering why Persephone smiles coyly at this. "My husband." Eurydice says, in a way that is very clearly a challenge.

Instead of retreating, Persephone laughs. "Men are fools. Men are frail. They are...unnecessary."

She cannot help but furrow her eyebrows at Persephone, "How so?" The goddess is so matter-of-fact, so unabashedly frank. No one up on top had ever been that way, and no one down here has the energy. Except, apparently, this lady of the underground.

Persephone places the glass of summer wine on the windowsill and twists their fingers together, pulling Eurydice away from the corner. No one seems to notice them leaving, even if Eurydice wishes a miner would raise their head and catch her eye, see the way the goddess tugged her along.

She wants to be _envied,_ she realises, for as strange as this moment is, Persephone has chosen _her._ For what, Eurydice is unsure, but she's chosen her.

The streets are quiet as she leads her away from the little hidden bar filled with Aboveworld delicacies. The streets are dark, like the power grid below their feet had died with Hades's retreat.

Persephone leads her to the little room on the third floor, Eurydice's room, and closes the door behind them. Eurydice wonders how she knows which is hers. She doesn't ask.

"Do you remember his name?" Persephone asks, quietly, turning to Eurydice with her back pressed to the door. Despite there being almost no light anywhere in Hadestown, besides Persephone's bar, the room seems to glow. It takes Eurydice much too long to realise that the goddess is casting the glow, and it shocks her more than she'd care to admit.

“I don't.” Eurydice admits. It hurts to think about him. She knows they had loved each other fiercely, despite how opposite they were of each other, and she knows he had a big heart, but she couldn't fit in it anymore, when she left. It's all she needs to know. Anything else will probably kill her, if it's possible, now that she's dead. “Please don't tell me.”

Persephone’s face is unreadable. Eurydice doesn't know what to make of her. She doesn't try.

When the goddess catches her up in her arms, her lips gliding from Eurydice’s lips to her chin and neck, swooping back to her temple, down to her shoulder, exposed by her dirty singlet, all Eurydice can do is cling to her and gasp like Hadestown is suddenly void of air. Technically, she doesn't have to breathe if she doesn't want to, but it makes her feel more alive to. She touches Persephone back, tentatively, sacred.

Any mark on her would enrage Hades , in knowing his wife had taken another lover; any wrong move and she'll fall from the goddess’ graces.

And she's already fallen so far.

Eurydice feels undeserving when Persephone lays her down on the hard wooden floor, when she pulls Eurydice’s suspenders down, when she unzips her pants. She is not worthy, and never will be.

“What do you wish to remember, then?” Persephone whispers to her jaw, teeth sharp and unforgiving on Eurydice’s skin. Whoever her lover was in the Aboveworld, he was never so rough with her. He loved her tenderly, slowly, painstakingly. He never wanted to hurt her, and somehow, inadvertently, he managed to send her here. “Heartbreak? Joy? Pleasure?”

(Eurydice wants to lie down forever.)

“Show me what I'm missing.” She whispers instead.

And in the darkness, Persephone’s smile is like the flick of a match, alighting.

 

**fin.**

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading, I really hope you liked this! If you did, please leave me a kudos and then tell me all about what you liked in the comments, because I'd love to hear it. Hmu on Tumblr for notifications when I post fic. Once again, thanks for reading!


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